Learn Indian Rummy

Indian Rummy is played between 2 to 6 players and each player is dealt 13 cards. For 2 or 3 players, two 52-card decks (104 cards) and 4 jokers (wild cards) are used. For 4 to 6 players, three decks (156 cards) and 6 jokers are used. Each player turn by turn (in clockwise order) deals the cards. Indian Rummy is interesting and challenging. It requires skill, use of memory and complete focus and involvement in the game.

The Object of the Game. The object is to form Runs (or sequences) and Sets. And when a player has formed required runs and sets using all the 13 card, the player declares his/her turn. A valid declare must have minimum two runs and out of these runs one run must be pure (called First Life). The second run can be pure or non pure (called Second Life). Either First Life or Second Life must have 4 or more cards. On a valid declare the scores of the rest of the players are counted.

For the rest of players all the unmatched cards are counted. A player must meet the requirements of minimum two runs (First Life and Second Life) else all the 13 cards are treated as unmatched and are counted. When all the 13 cards are unmatched, the player loses 80 points.

A Run (or Sequence).A run consists of 3 or more cards of same suit and are in consecutive order. The valid order being A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K-A. Thus with ace you can form the run A-2-3 or Q-K-A but you can not form K-A-2. Examples of valid runs are 4-5-6 , 9-10-J, 9-10-J-Q, A-2-3-4 and 8-9-10-J-Q-K. These are pure or straight or natural runs (runs without a joker).
A run can also use a joker as substitute for any missing card. Such a run is non pure run. Examples of non pure runs are 4-5-joker, 2-3-joker-5. In a run you can use only one joker as a wild card.

Three identical Cards. When playing with three 52-card decks, the three cards of same rank and same suit are treated as pure sequence/run. For example: 9-9-9 and J-J-J.

First Life and Second Life. In a vaild declare you must have minimum two runs. Examples of two Runs that meet the basic requirements are
a. If both the required runs are pure runs, one of the runs must have minimum 4 cards. For example: 10-J-Q and 4-5-6-7.
b. If one run is pure run and the other is non pure run, one of runs must have minimum 4 cards. For example: 8-9-10 and J-Q-K-Joker; 8-9-10-J and Q-Joker-A.

A Set. A set consists of 3 or 4 cards of same rank but of different suits. For example 4-4-4 and Q-Q-Q are valid sets. A set can not have two or more cards of same rank thus 4-4-4 and Q-Q-Q are invalid sets. A set may include a joker as a substitute for example Joker -4-4 and Q-Q- Joker.

The Deal. Each player is dealt 13 cards face down. The next card from the deck is placed face up on the table; this starts the discard pile. Rest of the cards are placed face down in the centre of the table; this is the stock pile. Each player picks his/her 13 cards and views them and then sorts them according to his/her choice. In Octro Rummy a card is picked from the stock pile and placed face up under the stock pile so that it is visible. All the cards of that rank regardless of the suit can be used as additional jokers. For example in a 2 or 3 players game using two decks, the card picked and kept visible under the stock pile is 9, then the additional jokers are 9, 9, 9 of one deck and 9, 9, 9, and 9 of the second deck; total seven in all. Thus in a 2 or 3 players game there are 11 jokers in all and in a 4 to 4 players game there are 17 jokers in all except if the card kept under stock pile is a printed joker. Then only the printed jokers are available for use as wild cards.

Playing Indian Rummy. The first player picks a card either the top card of discard pile or the top card of the stock pile. The top card of the discard pile is face up so the player can figure out if he/she needs this card or not. If the players decides not to pick the discard card, he/she must pick face down card from the stock pile. Now the player has 14 cards. The player examines his/her 14 cards and decides the card that is least important for forming runs and sets. The player takes the least important card and places it face up on the discard pile. This card becomes the top card of the discard pile. Now it is the turn of the next player to pick a card either the top card of discard pile or the top card of the stock pile.

A Valid Declare. The player who is first to use all the 13 cards to form runs and sets that also meet the basic requirement of two runs (at least one is pure and one has minimum 4 cards), declares his turn.OctroRummy checks if the declare is valid or not. Even if there are free jokers and the rest of the cards form runs and sets as required, the declare is valid. If the declare is found invalid, the declaring player is dropped from this hand and loses 80 points and the game continues between rest of the player till there is a valid declare.

Declaring in OctroRummy. When you have used all the 13 cards to form the runs and sets that meet the basis requirement, instead of putting your 14th card on the discard pile, you put it on the areas “Tap to throw your card and Declare.” OctroRummy will ask for your confirmation that you are ready to declare. After your Yes, you are ready to declare (or show) your cards.

Select the cards of a valid run or set and tap on the plank. Then select cards of second valid run or set and tap the next plank. And so on. If you have unused jokers, select these jokers and put on a separate plank. When you are all set to declare, select Declare. It is your responsibility to declare your cards properly and you must keep each run and set separate. If you make any mistake while declaring, you can undo it. Select the plank with cards that you want to rearrange. Then select Reset.

Scoring. The unmatched cards of the rest of the players are counted. Even if a player has runs and sets but does not meet the basic requirement of two runs (First Life and Second Life), all the 13 cards are counted as unmatched. Scoring is as underAll unmatched cards 80 pointsUnmatched J, Q, K or 10 10 points eachRest of unmatched card each as its rank value, for example an unmatched 2 is worth 2 points, 3 is worth 3 points, 4 is worth 4 points and so on.Dropping from the game. If you drop from the game without picking even a single card from the discard pile or stock pile, you lose 20 points. If you drop in between a hand, before any other player has done a valid declare, you lose 40 points.

Legality. In India playing rummy online is legal. Rummy has been declared by the courts of law to be a game of skill or mere skill and is excluded from the applicability of laws prohibiting betting and gambling.

Requirements. Indian Rummy by Octro is an online game that you can play in real time with your friends, relative or unknown people. It requires stable Internet connection.

Thanks for your comment. We will forward it to your team, and will see if they are open to considering it as a sequence.Recently this has been implemented:When playing with three 52-card decks, the three cards of same rank and same suit are treated as pure sequence/run.

Wild Cards (or Jokers). All the printed jokers are wild cards. Plus all cards of same rank as the face up card below the stock pile on the table are wild cards.
In a sequence or a set any wild card can be used as a substitute for the missing card. Only one wild card can be used in a sequence or a set. The sequence that uses a wild card (as a substitute for the mising card) is a non pure sequence.

Many times I have experienced that a sequence with 2 jockers is not a valid sequence in this game why?
It can be considered as a an impure sequence actually.
Have lost so many games bcos of this. Even after I have a pure sequence.

Any sequence or set that uses more than one wild card is not valid. This is true all the time for all the players.
Why? We www. are the developers of this Indian Rummy software. We do not make the rules. Our software is based on the rules followed by all the leading clubs in India.

…just tell me suppose the joker is 3 with ace….then all the cards of 3 number with the ace are jokers or I can consider number 3 of hukam also as a joker ….tell me if suppose the joker card comes.tht also is a joker what

Ashok, the four suits are diamond (इंट eent), spade (हुकम hukam), club (चिड़ि chiri ) and heart (पान pan). If 3 of diamond is open wild card (under stock pile), then 3 of spade, 3 of club and 3 of heart are also jokers (wild card). Also all the printed jokers are wild cards.

…we play like there should be all pure sequence …for example 4567 of ace , and if we get 3333 of different suits we consider ……but tell me if I get A, K ,Q of different suits for eg if I get A of Spade and K of ace tht is considered wright game what ……..please tell me if on the table I get 10 ace …then 10 ace only we have to consider as a joker ….we can also consider 10 spade also as a joker…

4567 of same suit is a pure sequence of 4 cards. 456 of same suit is also a pure sequence of three cards. But 3333 of different suits is not a sequence, it is called a set.
A-K-Q is a pure sequence if all the three cards are of same suit. If any card is of different suit, it is an invalid sequence.
If 10 is an open wild card, then all the 10s of all suits are jokers.

In Indian rummy 3333 of different suits is allowed as 4 cards set, provided one pure sequence and second pure or non pure sequence is available. If it is not allowed in this app, better if it can be changed

Hello Phyllis, are you playing Rummy on iOS or Android (and on which version of Android)? Do you have the facebook app installed or do you use Facebook in the browser? Which version of the app are you using?

Maybe you can contact us at support@octro.com, and we can sort the problem out with you.

I am unable to declare even after the whole game done and when the other person declares and I set my runs and sets, I still get 80 points. I have had a pure or an impure sets with 4 cards sometimes both with 4 but it still won’t let me set.
I have lost all my games with 80 points. You don’t suppose I play it wrong all the time? The declare option just won’t work.

A player must meet the requirements of minimum two runs (First Life and Second Life) else all the 13 cards are treated as unmatched and are counted. When all the 13 cards are unmatched, the player loses 80 points. Also make sure to declare properly — declare each valid sequence (run) or set separately. It is your responsibility to declare your cards properly and you must keep each run and set separate.
Dropping from the game. If you drop from the game without picking even a single card from the discard pile or stock pile, you lose 20 points. If you drop in between a hand, before any other player has done a valid declare, you lose 40 points.

A player must meet the requirement of minimum two runs (First Life and Second Life) else all the 13 cards are treated as unmatched and are counted. When all the 13 cards are unmatched, the player loses 80 points. Also make sure to declare properly — declare each valid sequence (run) or set separately. It is your responsibility to declare your cards properly and you must keep each run and set separate.
You can always view results of all the previous games played by you. Click your name avatar and select Previous Result. This opens Previous Results page. Now select the hand/round for which you want to view the declaration. This will help you figure out why you lost the points.

We have had a debate over this in-house, and we have decided to allow this. Changes would be made to the server, in a few days and then you will be permitted to make a hand like that. We will notify you when we have made the necessary changes.

When we reaching higher level I am unable to get sufficient players on the table Becks of non availability of level players. So I have to try my skills with rummy bot only as hand to hand which is vexing.
SO I SUGGEST U TO MODIFY UR PROG TO ALLOW A PLAYER TO PLAY ONE LOWER LEVEL STAKE IT GENERATES INTEREST
I understand u may loose income becoz players may not buy chips but pl consider.

Thanks for the suggestion. We generally try to only introduce a level when we think there are going to be enough users for at least 25 concurrent tables.
But, we do understand the point you are making. Thanks for your feedback.

You press declare but due to bad internet connection this information does not reach Rummy server in the allowed time, the server will assume that you did not declare and you lose 80 points. The winner gets your points. You are playing in real time with people around the world so you need stable internet connection.

I think your program should allow the player on standby or just stood up from the game to view the cards of the players playing the game. This would help in improving one’s own game and make it interesting while watching other players playing.

There is a real problem with this game! Somebody mentioned it earlier & I have reported it to you as well, with pics attached to my message. Out of no where I will loose all but one of my cards. Thought it was only when using FB sign-in, but this time I was a guest. At least one other player at my table experienced same, at same time. BTW, not an internet confection issue on my end! Wish you would fix, but I think I’m giving up. After putting in effort to build nice hand only to be dropped, it is just too frustration, and a big waste of my time.

Your sort icon placed at right side corner is giving us trouble when we r declaring the deal. This is becoz within in short time for declaring at that time we mistakenly pressing the sort icon and as a result all the cords r aligning causing confusion while declaring so place this just below ‘I’ or message button pl consider

Why the players r restricted to level 6 only when there is availability of 200, 500 and 1000chips/point in private table? Once we reach 2 lakh chips level 7 and so on so forth with allowance of playing one lower level . In future this app will be used by professional players

Dear Ragav, we keep adding more levels as we get more players. We don’t want to have tables on which we don’t have many players. We always want you to have enough players on each level. Once we get to that level, we will introduce level 7, and so on.

If you like our app, don’t forget to recommend us on the app store, facebook and to your friends. The more users we get, the more we can work on keeping the app up to date, and to keep everything running smoothly.

Dear Saurab yes I am refering previous results page. Sometimes when we r playing with BOT it is becoming very difficult becoz he plays very fast hence giving us little time to plan our cards. At least if he take little more seconds it would be better for handling the cards in hand thank u

The open card after distributing the cards is the RIGHT of the player for picking it. But u r denying it when it comes to open joker(wild card) by not allowing him his right. It is not fair pl rectify it.

Earlier suggestion of relocating SORT button not implement yet, u r not easing the inconvinience of the player

Ragav, the changes that you suggest, go to our product management team. It is up to them to schedule them for a release. We tend to do monthly feature releases for Rummy client, and weekly releases for Rummy server. So, even if your suggestion is accepted, it will probably take a month before it shows up on your client.

Manoj, as far as we know, you cannot have more than 1 joker in a sequence/run in 13 card rummy. I guess, there are variations in what some people play vs. the others, but we are trying to adhere to what the rules in most clubs are.

You could make 5676 if 6 was the wildcard if one of the 6 is used as a “regular” card of the same suit as the sequence.

U r correct Saurabh. We should not use more than one wild card in four card impure sequence adopted in many leading clubs in India

While playing we r becoming friendly with co players by exchanging messages but the font size is too small n the time appearing on the screen is very little causing us to go back in message log to read it. Request to ratify it

Five card runs are allowed in our software. You need to have atleast 2 lifes for us to count remaining cards. These 2 lifes are -
1) Pure Sequence
2) Another Sequence
3) One of the lifes has to be more than 3 cards
4) You cannot use more than 1 joker in any sequence

Saurab
I understood your points. Here is my exp. no need to have any life with 4 cards.
A set or run can be a 3 or more cards. Anyways we cannot have a set with more than four cards since we have only four suits.
We can use any number of jocker/wild card in all sets and second life ( non pure run)
Even with out a pure run we can count but all cards except wild cards. Some times it will be less than 80 if we get low face numbers. The only condition is we can not show the game without lives.

Pls ref. online books for Indian rummy.

I wanted to see your app as a fully valid app hope u will work on that

Dear Srinivas, thanks for your feedback. The problem here is that there are several variations of Indian Rummy in play in various geographies of India. Every geography/group plays Rummy with its own rules. Right now the more popular version is 21 card rummy and not 13 card rummy.

We have tried to pick the most popular version of rules in our game at this time. In the future, we will also try to support other variations of Rummy Rules (like the ones you mention).

But, do understand that the set of rules we support are not wrong – they are just different from what you are used to seeing.

Saurabh u r right. The set of rules u r following r correct and challenging while playing. In so many times I have to shell out full count becoz of non availability of four card sequence. In Andhra Pradesh it self number of variants r there where rummy is popular card game. Keep going on.

I am playing rummy since last 15 to 20 yrs. today when I see this in App Store I was excited and thought of testing most of the scenarios so that it will help you in improving the game. If you can implement all real rules this will be at top in game.
Wish you good luck

Tip:
1) better to increase time to start new game after declaration, so that player can see others sets well and check whether points calculated properly or not
2) provide option to see remaining chips while playing game.
3) provide more time in first turn for setting cards after cards distribution

One more issue in rule engine
I got hearts 3,4,5 as pure life. Joker was 3. I got q and k of same suit, added a joker to it. I had multiple jokers. As a 4 cards set I had spades 3 two more jokers and spade 6. And one more triplet with joker. So all 4 sets are valid and multiple jokers should be allowed in one set, but this app rejected spade 3, two jokers and spade 6 set and deducted 80 chips. Though i got time to check few scenarios Whatever scenarios I tried till now most of them are not allowed in this app. I think some thing wrong with rule engine or rules framed

One suggestion:
Players should b allowed to drop their cards only when their turn comes. Presently they r allowed before their turn. This is causing loss to first hand declaring the rummy( as we call it DEAL) by the first player.

Sometimes the players are making middle drop before their turn after anticipating next player declaration such that avoiding full count

Saurabh 2 queries: 1 . I was unable to declare because the advertisement was partially hiding my cards.
2 . How can we call back wrongly placed cards before hitting DONE.
I have lost a couple of good games for this reason .

Remove the bottom ad and, place it above the playing area of a player. During the game, just touching it by mistake takes u out of the game and till u return, everything is over.. It is nothing but a nuisance for the players.

In 13 Card Indian Rummy by Octro, you can use only one joker in a sequence. If you use two or more jokers in a sequence, it is declared invalid. If you have unused jokers, declare it separately.
There are several variations of Rummy played in India. We have chosen the most common one and the one that is played in most leading clubs in India. A lot of groups play Rummy, and with slightly different rules.

Hello Ragav, our BOTs are not very smart. At high stake tables, they tend to loose a lot of chips. So, we have restricted them. We will very soon release an offline version of Indian Rummy where you can have unrestricted access to BOTs but the money will not be able to to be used on Online game.

We might make our BOTs smarter and then re-introduce them to the higher tables in the future. But until then, they are limited to 10 chip/point.

Now relishing more on poker games, as a retired scientist in govt of India presently staying with aussi citizen I am exploring more varieties, but I am not using octro poker, thanks for the enquiry. God bless u

Middle drop penalty is 40 points, and not 20 points. We consider it initial drop if you haven’t picked a card – so if you have had timeouts (no move played), and then you drop, we consider it initial drop.

The declared option works OK if i am the declarer.. but I am unable to declared if someone else declared first… even when I got first and second life(both pure) along wit a set.. The declared option just won’t work!! please help me out…

Lynn,
The game requires stable Internet connection. Over 10 thousands users login and play at a time, and they are not facing any such problem.
Please let us know device you are using. Also make sure that you have latest version of Indian Rummy by Octro.

Saurabh
U have made bots s extra- ordinarily strong by manipulating extra jokers n sequences such dat we r always loosing to them. This is not fair. Sometimes we to play with them wen no player on table hence, invariably we r loosing. Pl do something otherwise we loose interest in playing this app

If by accident I click only two cards of one run and if i have enough time left for final declaration, is there any option to re shuffle my cards once again. I lost 80 points for this too many times. May be I’m a bit speedy and excited but I’m sure i should win if another try of presenting cards is given

This if from Learn Indian Rummy at www.:
Select the cards of a valid run or set and tap on the plank. Then select cards of second valid run or set and tap the next plank. And so on. If you have unused jokers, select these jokers and put on a separate plank. When you are all set to declare, select Declare. It is your responsibility to declare your cards properly and you must keep each run and set separate. If you make any mistake while declaring, you can undo it. Select the plank with cards that you want to rearrange. Then select Reset.

Dear Saurabh
Introducing BOT as one of the player in the table is an excellent move. Now game is becomming more interesting.
In regular game we have the option of verifying the discarded cards by the other players such dat we can target the defence play, unfortunately we don’t have this option in this app. If possible introduce it

This game is so confusing. Ok so your rules say that “There is a card placed face up under the stock pile so that it is visible. All the cards of that rank regardless of the suit can be used as additional jokers.” But even though I’ll have a pure set of 4 and then use jokers for other sets.. it will say declare was invalid. Its got to the point where I don’t use them at all… secondly I was just playing against one other person… he won and I lost $4000… I won 2 in a row and won $500 each round… then he won and Again I lost $4000 he won $4000. We were playing same table… just him and I why is there inconsistencies??